But surely the author of the report cannot think the amount, even as overstated by him, to be disproportionate to the end to be attained--"to cherish, protect, and preserve the free common schools," when it is added that _our_ purpose is also "to extend" and to make our common schools "free" indeed to all, whether Jew or Gentile. All that we ask is to have our equal rights in this land of equal rights, and to extend in the broadest manner the freedom of the public schools, so that the rights and consciences of none may be restricted or violated. We ask simply that the "money raised by taxes," so large a portion of which we are charged to have "abstracted," shall be divided _pro rata_, and so, by dividing the difficulty, conquer it! In the report, it is admitted (p. 4) that the "enormous sum" alleged or intimated to have been surreptitiously "taken" or "abstracted," was not "taken" for the purpose of individual gain, but for "the support of convents, churches, cathedrals, and church schools." What sum, _thus expended_, can be too great? In what is it enormous? Is it enormous because disproportioned to the amount expended by other "sects"? Or is it so because expended for the support of schools kept in "damp basements of churches, so dark that gas has to be used on the brightest days," rather than in the "educational palaces" where Catholics cannot go without a violation of conscience, and from which they are practically excluded?
And here it is notable that in the report now under consideration (p. 2) is printed the following, purporting to be an extract from a report of the "Secretary of Commissioners of Charities" to the Legislature in 1871, wherein it is said the secretary "_refers very truthfully to the already marked injury to the public schools of the city of New York caused by building up and supporting from the public treasury so large a number of rival sectarian schools_" (see _Rep._ pp. 99, 100). The italics are not ours.
Now, in the report of the Hon. Abram B. Weaver, Superintendent of Public Education, made in the same year (1871), he says: "The aggregate and the average attendance was greater absolutely, and in proportion to population, than in any former year"--"... 11,700 schools were maintained, 17,500 teachers were employed, and about $10,000,000 were expended" (_Rep. Com. of Education_, 1871, p. 291). "The average number of pupils for the whole state in attendance each day of the entire term in 1870 was 16,284, more than in 1869, etc." (p. 292). And in New York City, we are told in the same report (p. 301 of _Report of Commissioners of Education_, 1871), "It is interesting to note, as evidence of the substantial progress of free schools in New York City, that, while the whole population of the city has increased but about 14 per cent. in the last ten years, the average attendance of pupils has increased nearly 54 per cent. in the same time." Now, wherein consists the _injury_ complained of? While the average attendance on the "free public schools" was actually increasing, whence came the children attending in these "damp basements of churches," and what necessity drove them from the "educational palaces"? Is the condition, in certain respects, of our public schools such as is pictured by the writer of the following, taken from the New York _Herald_ of Feb. 9, 1873: